A GOOD AGE: Her mother's gift of birdsong led to a new life at 50

Tuesday

May 8, 2018 at 4:31 AM

One of the gifts Sally Avery's mother gave her as a child was her interest in birds and birdsong. Nearly 50 years later, it changed her life.

MARSHFIELD — Mothers give their children many gifts. I am grateful mine took me for swimming lessons and museum outings. For Sally Avery of Cohasset, one of her mother's legacies was a simple bedtime ritual that later turned Sally's life in a new direction. It was the gift of birdsong.

"When I was a little girl, my mother put me to bed with the birds," Sally said. "It was still light outside and the robins always sing at dusk and I'd hear this 'Cheer-up, cheer-up, cheer-a-lee . . ' And then I'd wake up in the morning and the cardinals would be doing this song we are hearing now."

We were at the Mass Audubon Daniel Webster Wildlife Sanctuary, listening to a string of clear whistles. On a beautiful Saturday morning, Sally was leading a bird walk. It was one of my first, but Janice Scoppettuolo of Pembroke has been birding for 20 years. Before the morning was over, Janice would spot a yellowish palm warbler, one of the earliest warbler migrants, and be pleased to hear Sally praise her as "a very good bird finder."

I had been intrigued by Sally's story since hearing it a year ago at Hingham Public Library. Her mother was not a birder but always liked the birds in their yard in Johnstown, Pa. As a gardener, Sally would listen to birds singing and one day was struck by one she'd never heard before. "I started buying the bird tapes, I even had a 78 rpm with bird songs, but I couldn't find it," she said. In the mid-90s she joined a Friday morning birding group at the Mass Audubon North River Sanctuary. "That bird turned out to be a Carolina wren, which was new to the area then," Sally said.

She was working for Electronic Data Systems; her husband, Dick, had retired at age 52 from corporate life and became a dedicated community volunteer. Their son Connor was in high school. "He was having all the fun and I found I really was getting the itch to get out birding after reading magazines and listening to tapes," she said. In 2000, a friend asked her to give a lecture on birding and soon requests from other garden clubs and the Boy Scouts merit badge program poured in. She developed a small lecture business on birds and birdsong and was able to use those added Social Security credits to retire in 1996. At age 50, she said, "I found out what I wanted to do and grew up. I never dreamed it would become this big in my life but certainly I found my passion."

Both Sally and Dick Avery are active volunteers for Mass Audubon and the South Shore Bird Club. She leads club walks early on Thursday mornings at Wompatuck State Park and is part of Audubon's classes for the the Lifelong Learning program at the Marshfield senior center.

Spending time among the birds with Sally is a treat because of her generous enthusiasm for helping others and her talents at exacting bird description and birdsong. "It takes years of listening and practicing and hearing them out in the field," she said. Her words create vivid images. Red wing blackbirds can use their shoulder muscles to control the amount of color they are showing. "When they are doing their aggressive or territorial display, they puff up those epaulets and they are a bright red. You have a bird flying at you with those bright red epaulets puffed up, its spectacular," she said. A grand parade. The male wild turkeys were in "a frenzy of display;" in contrast, the song sparrow had "little brown breast spots and streaking, two brown mustache stripes."

During the walk along the Green Harbor River loop, she also described the grass composition that meadowlarks need and imitated the songs of the chickadee and phoebe, melodic to harsher.

Twenty years past retirement, it is truly another life, another world. She has found what many might hope for. And if she could be a bird? "A hermit thrush," thought to have one of the most beautiful voices of all birds.

She carried a scope on a tripod to magnify close-up views. We were in a blind; she was looking through her scope and said, "There's the mallard; I've got to see if the snipe is anywhere visible . . . Oh he is! I've got him in the scope. A snipe!" Snared.

The Mass Audubon South Shore Sanctuaries include the Daniel Webster and North River and North Hill Marsh in Duxbury. Sue MacCallum is director. Call 781-837-9400 or visit massaudubon.org/southshore.

Reach Sue Scheible at scheible@ledger.com, 617-786-7044, or The Patriot Ledger, P.O. Box 699159, Quincy 02269-9159. Read her Good Age blog on our website. Follow her on Twitter @ sues_ledger.